By Tommy Hough

Good afternoon, my name is Tommy Hough. I live in Mira Mesa.

There's a process concern and a substance concern here with getting rid of the park acreage standard and replacing it with a point system that pits park amenities vs. parkland acquisition. We need both, but because amenities are less expensive we're concerned parkland won’t be acquired to the extent it needs to be given our city’s increasing urbanization.

There's been no outreach to planning groups or recreation councils about the city ending the park acreage standard. On that basis, this proposal should be delayed.

Also – and I want to be clear on this – Multiple Species Conservation Program (MSCP) lands set aside for habitat conservation must not, or ever, be considered for greater use in the form of trails and mountain bike routes. Those uses conflict with legal preservation requirements and would undo the entire purpose of the Multiple Species Conservation Program. These lands cannot be placed into a vulnerable open space matrix out of laziness or expedience.

In addition, commercial encroachment is not acceptable on any public lands, certainly not on its parklands. Please delay a vote on this matter and allow for greater public input and greater sunshine in all corners of this policy.

​Thank you.

By George Wuerthner

Like zombies rising from the dead, legislators continue to push the flawed notion that logging can preclude massive wildfires and protect communities. The Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020, introduced by Senator Steve Daines (R–Montana) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D–California), is another example of the failure of our politicians to use science to guide effective legislation.

The legislation's goal is to reduce wildfire impact on communities, but the bill is more a giveaway to the timber industry than a panacea for large wildfires.

Climate and weather drive all significant wildfires, not fuels. Extreme fire weather includes low humidity, high temperatures, drought and, more importantly, high winds. If you have high winds, you cannot stop or slow a wildfire by logging or any other "fuel reduction."

If fuels were the primary cause of large wildfires, Oregon and Washington's coastal forests would be ablaze. These forests have more fuel per acre than a hundred acres of mountain woodlands. But there are virtually no fires in these coastal forests. Why? Because the climate is cool and moist

However, when you have extreme fire weather, nothing stops fires — until the weather changes.

The legislation would reduce environmental regulations and public oversight while fast-tracking logging far from communities and homes. It calls for the creation of "fuel breaks" of up to 3,000 acres (an acre is approximately the same size as a football field). Never mind that large wildfires regularly eject embers that can cross extensive areas without any fuels. For instance, the Eagle Fire in Oregon in 2017 jumped the mile-and-a-half width of the Columbia River.

Numerous researchers have emphasized that it is the home's flammability that determines the vulnerability of houses to wildfire. Logging miles from communities provides no added benefits in reducing wildfire threat, but it does impose environmental impacts.

For example, logging roads are a chronic source of sediment in streams, damaging trout waters across the West. Since most ignitions start on or near roadways, more roads ironically will increase the likelihood of more fires. Logging also increases the chances of fire by putting more fine fuels on the forest floor and opening the forest to drying and wind penetration. Logging also compacts soils, spreads weeds and disturbs sensitive wildlife.

Logging also reduces carbon storage and releases far more carbon into the atmosphere than wildfire. Thus, ironically, this legislation will contribute to more significant carbon dioxide emissions, which are the main factor in climate warming, which creates favorable conditions for wildfire spread.

None of these "costs" of logging will get serious consideration if this legislation is passed.

Some might say all these impacts are worthwhile if logging prevented large wildfires. But the science is clear on this topic, and the overwhelming evidence is that thinning/logging can't preclude large climate and weather-driven blazes.

The Daines-Feinstein legislation is misguided. The best way to assist communities is to provide financial resources to improve the resistance of homes to wildfires and community preparedness. Long term, we must also address carbon dioxide emissions, which are the ultimate source of climate warming driving large wildfires.

​George Wuerther is an ecologist who has written several books on wildfire ecology.

This piece originally appeared in the Idaho Falls Post Register.

Photo by Tommy Hough

By Tommy Hough

Since co-founding San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action in 2014, I've spent a great deal of time writing, giving presentations, and making comments on conservation, in part to break the cycle of sprawl development in our backcountry.

I did much the same during the run of Treehuggers International on FM 94/9, and produced shows like the one posted here to give listeners pause about the impact of the never-ending cycle of suburban sprawl around San Diego County, mostly to build expensive housing unaffordable to most working San Diegans, far from jobs and transit.

Of course, I've been applying my conservation ethic and environmental advocacy for nearly 20 years, going back to a series of pieces I wrote for the Seattle Times detailing the need for comprehensive firefighting strategies and questioning the need to aggressively fight wildfires, or engage in prescribed burns and habitat destruction in the name of fire suppression in the hinterlands, miles from communities or private property. While managing communications at Oregon Wild I similarly had a front row seat for many of these conflicts between development, wildfire risk, and "defensible space."

I try not to carry a one-size fits all or myopic mindset with me, and I realize each proposal has its individual attributes. But since my arrival in Southern California I've come to value the unblemished open space of chaparral communities and ecosystems that make San Diego County so special and ecologically diverse, contrasted with the overdevelopment, sprawl, and denuded landscapes just to the north of us in Riverside County.

If you were to have taken a drive north on I-215 to Menifee at the time this show was recorded in 2008, and then turned east to go towards Hemet through Diamond Valley, perhaps via Domenigoni Parkway, you would've found a largely empty grassland, but still a functional wildlife corridor amid encroaching suburbia. Today, that encroachment has arrived, and the valley has come to typify the differences between our two counties toward development.

Now, road signs in Murietta, Menifee, Perris, and Diamond Valley aren't placed by municipalities or governments, but by housing speculators and developers. Rows of flags guide you to perfectly-graded, valley-wide expanses of earth like the wide shot of Marty McFly's Hill Valley neighborhood in 1955, with newly-poured concrete slabs quietly waiting for water and gas hookups. Despite what some of the giant billboards may advertise, these aren't affordable housing developments. They never will be.

While northern San Diego County is particularly rugged and hilly and perhaps not as suitable for development as the flatter valleys of Riverside County north of Temecula and Lake Elsinore at the base of the San Jacinto range, the blankets of chaparral that give Southern California its cooling backcountry green as its largest native ecosystem remains naturally contiguous throughout. To say it is misunderstood and frequently maligned would be an understatement.

Which brings me to this show. This episode of Treehuggers International features my friend Rick Halsey, the founder and director of the California Chaparral Institute, who was a frequent guest on the show and, at the time, a member of the San Diego Regional Fire Safety Forum formed in the wake of the 2003 Cedar Fire and 2007 Witch Creek Fire.

This particular episode is from Rick's second appearance on the show, recorded Oct. 2, 2008, and broadcast a few days later on Sunday, Oct. 5. While I never posted this episode on this particular page, I thought it was worth sharing now, 12 years later, because we're still talking about so many of the same issues, threats, and dumb behavior when it comes to our attitudes about wildfire in relation to the state's largest natural ecosystem. So much of this conversation remains so relevant it could've been recorded last week.

Rick and I were initially planning to talk about then-Supervisor Bill Horn's penchant for "fuel clearance," and the wanton destruction of perfectly healthy natural habitat in our backcountry, but the conversation also veered toward the impact of recent wildfires on old-growth chaparral stands in San Diego and along the Central Coast, how to make communities safer from wildfire, the future of Rancho Guejito, the use of goats in fuel clearance projects, and some bad behavior on the part of the U.S. Forest Service and a brush-crushing masticator (!) that devastated a virgin stand of chaparral in the Santa Ana Mountains.

​​Tom Petty once said, "People may be slow, but they ain't deaf." I hope that's true. I hope if policymakers and the public hear Rick Halsey enough times they'll start to get the cotton out of their ears and think about their positions on conservation, on sprawl at any cost, and think through the long-term effects of "managing" the natural environment that nature already manages for us.

Thanks as always to Rick for being my guest in 2008, and for continuing to speak on these same critical matters a dozen years later.

Santa Ana Mountains and Hauser Wilderness photos by Tommy Hough
​Chaparral masticator photo by Jeff Kuyper

By Trip Jennings

Federal agents shot me in the face last night while I was covering the Black Lives Matter protests in Portland. It should be obvious to everyone by now that black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) face a higher risk of violence at the hands of police than I do. I'll never know what it's like not to be white, but protests do provide an interesting moment for white people when our privilege doesn't protect us.

Friends feel free to share. Media, do not repost without permission.

To everyone who believes that the only people who get hurt at protests are those who have been violent, that's wrong. To those who think it is only "other people" not like you, that is also wrong. I am a professional journalist, a father-to-be, I run a business, I create jobs for other people. I'm a landlord, a neighbor, a friend, and I want to live in a world where black people and all BIPOC feel the freedom I normally do. I hope to help by telling stories and bearing witness.

​On the night of Saturday, July 25, I was shooting photos from the center of the crowd when federal agents suddenly became more aggressive, firing lots of tear gas and impact munitions into a large group of people.

I retreated with the group, stumbling through Chapman Square  and across the street in clouds of tear gas. When I reached 4th Ave. and got out of the thickest tear gas, I stopped to figure out my next step. A line of federal agents (and possibly PPB) walked through the tear gas cloud on Salmon St. toward the very dispersed group of people around me. We quickly walked away on Salmon, following dispersal orders.

Then, there was a sudden barrage of impact munitions fired around me. I ducked behind a car. Protesters in the street were positioned behind shields being pelted with pepper balls, foam balls, and maybe some sort of paintball and/or rubber bullets. I captured a few images and waited. Once the shooting stopped, I used the moment to try and get a safe distance from the advancing federal agents. I walked swiftly, hands and camera in the air, ducked behind a tree some distance down the block, and turned to see if I was far enough away to be safe.

As I turned, I was pelted with what I think were pepper balls. One hit the lens of my gas mask on my left eye. The plastic broke, lacerating my eye, eyelid, and cheek. I knelt down to assess and when I realized I could walk and see, I ran to 5th Ave. and began asking folks to help me find a medic. Shortly, three medics responded. I took my gas mask and helmet off and one said, "Oh my God, that's bad." I cannot say enough good things about these medics. I am beyond grateful for their work, but that reaction wasn't my favorite part.

In a moment we were in their car on our way to the hospital. Unfortunately, the car was facing downhill toward the troops. They had advanced and we had to pull forward to leave the street parking. In a moment they were surrounding the car, pointing flashlights and guns at us. I pressed my face close to the window, pointed to my now very bloody face, and yelled "hospital." The medics slowly backed up as the feds shot the vehicle with more impact munitions. No windows were broken. On the way to the hospital, we drove through clouds of tear gas so the windows stayed shut and the pepper spray on my clothing and bag choked us all.

In urgent care, the doctor left the room multiple times as the pepper on me caused her to cough uncontrollably. She wore a respirator to stitch my eye. As I left the hospital near sunrise, another protester was being admitted with the same injury.

I have the option of going to a protest and putting myself at risk of police violence. Or I can choose to stay out of harm's way. For black Americans, there is no opting out of the risk of police violence in everyday life. This was incredibly scary and stressful for my wife and I, but we know we only have to experience this once in a while, and when we do it's often by choice. Many people in our community live with this fear every day. This has to stop, and we have to make this change. Black Lives Matter.

Trip Jennings is a producer and videographer with Balance Media and National Geographic. He and his wife live in Portland.

By Tommy Hough

With the naked display of state-sponsored fascism on the streets of Portland as the Department of Homeland Security wages a terror campaign against the citizens of an American city, and the threatened deployment of federal paramilitaries throughout the U.S. by President Trump and the unprecedented step it brings toward police state authoritarianism, consider Martin Niemöller's cautionary poem "First They Came," written in 1946 following the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II.

A theologian, pastor, and opponent of the Nazi regime, Niemöller led an influential Lutheran congregation in the Berlin suburbs at the time the Nazis came to power, and wrote his poem about the cowardice of German intellectuals and his fellow clergymen during the rise of the Third Reich, and the regime's incremental undoing of the rule of law, especially after the violence and summary executions of the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, and the implementation of the racist Nuremberg Laws in 1935, which robbed German Jews of all aspects of citizenship and civil rights. We know what followed.

Niemöller was first arrested by the Nazi regime in 1937, and was a tried by a "special," i.e. kangaroo court for crimes against the Reich. While the court eventually released him due to the number of months he'd already been in jail, Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess had him seized by the Gestapo immediately afterwards, and he was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and later Dachau concentration camps until the end of the war in 1945.

Since Niemöller wasn't formally arrested, as he had been before, there was no recourse to his seizure. There was no due process either, despite the fact Niemöller was a lawful citizen. He was simply snatched away extrajudicially and detained, without a trace. The Nazis called this "night and fog."

After a trial run on the streets of San Diego in June, that exact same behavior is now being applied by federal paramilitaries in Portland, and the administration freely admits this model will soon be applied in other cities.

This administration is taking hostages with little legal recourse, and making examples of "disloyal," almost entirely Democratic-run cities. In this manner, the administration may bargain their way into concessions for the November election in a protracted and deliberately exhausting legal procedure. In Trump's mind, this is the art of the deal.

We are facing our greatest constitutional crisis since the Civil War, which ended 155 years ago in 1865, but never really ended. It takes demagogues like Trump to follow the examples of despotic regimes and his own inner toxicity to use our nation's faultlines and divisions as a means of enhancing his power, rather than working to bring our nation together the way a normal, responsible human would be inclined to do.

But should Trump lose the November election, or otherwise be removed from power, he's well aware he will no longer be protected by a cloak of presidential power. He, his family, and many of his subordinates will deservedly face trial and imprisonment on multiple fronts and charges. And given Trump's own words and the extraordinary machinations of state power already being given free rein, set against the backdrop of the deadliest pandemic our nation has faced in 100 years, there is no reason to expect the president won't use every despotic means available to remain in power, even as every authoritarian move he makes belies his own impotence and lack of real power.

So where are the Jade Helm conspiracy theorists now? Where are those who claim wearing a face mask is "tyranny?" Pay attention to those remaining silent at this moment of actual tyranny.

If you're unable to stand against the authoritarian tide being incited by a decadent executive branch, which isn't even pretending to take "incremental" steps anymore in dismantling 244 years of our democratic traditions as it attacks non-violent protesters, you may bear a resemblance to the narrator of "First They Came."

Because someday, perhaps sooner than you think, "they" may come for you, in the midst of night and fog. And who will stand for you then?

The original version of Niemöller's "First They Came" is:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Actor Rafael Casal wrote an updated version of the poem for the Trump era last year:

First they came for the immigrants
And I did not speak out
Because I was not an immigrant

Then they came for the children of immigrants
And I did not speak out
Because I am not a child of an immigrant

Then they came for the brown and black
And I did not speak out
Because I am neither brown nor black

Then they came for the politicians
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a politician

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak for me.​

By Tommy Hough

For the first time in 50 years, San Diego is renegotiating its franchise agreement with San Diego Gas and Electric (SDGE) in a decision that will have sweeping ramifications for our city, giving the powerful Sempra utility exclusive rights to use the city's public right-of-ways for transmission and distribution of electricity, along with the ability to install wires, poles, power lines, and underground gas and electric lines.

Originally signed in 1970, the 50-year franchise agreement comes to an end on Jan. 17, 2021, presenting San Diegans with an extraordinary opportunity to reboot and set new terms for our region's transition to a renewable energy future, including opportunities for a municipal energy provider.

As usual, I had more remarks prepared than time available, so here are the entirety of my planned remarks before the San Diego City Council Environment Committee:

Good afternoon, my name is Tommy Hough, from Mira Mesa.

I'd like to request this committee and council delay any kind of decision on a future franchise utility agreement until the public has had a meaningful opportunity to consider this matter, and for a public debate and discussion to occur before council again considers this.

So many things have changed over the last 50 years since the current agreement was implemented, an era in which no one thought twice about the use of coal, or coal-fired power plants to power our nation, and an era in which solar and renewable energy was still largely the realm of science fiction, even as manned missions were successfully landing and exploring the moon.

I'm not sure how or why anyone in 1970, at a moment when change and technological innovation was as rapid as the rate change we experience today, thought that 50 years was a reasonable length of time for a city of our size to be committed to one utility vendor, especially without having a full, public discussion over the benefits of a municipal, community-owned utility.

While SDGE engages in generous community philanthropy, has invested in an extraordinary power infrastructure in our corner of Southern California, and does a marvelous job keeping the lights on with a grid that we know needs to be updated, my neighbors and I pay some of the highest power rates not just in California, but in the continental U.S., in a locale where solar and renewables should be the most efficient and the most cost-effective.

Ultimately, SDGE's parent company, Sempra, is no friend to the ratepayer. They are the friend of stockholders paying top executives. Our city should have nothing to do with that kind of arrangement at citizen expense.

Indeed, Sempra has revealed itself on several occasions to be a rather poor community partner. Just recently it formed and deployed a lobbying arm that was dead set on stopping community choice energy even after the utility had pledged to move forward as a partner in the concept. In 2015, when SDGE was making its initial inroads into the San Diego County Democratic Party, a company representative attempted to shift "blame" for rate hikes on the poorest San Diegans away from SDGE and onto those who use solar and renewable energy in a shameful, shocking display of public gaslighting on the floor of a central committee meeting.

This city should not handcuff itself to this utility for any longer than five years at a time, so that we as a community may more fully consider the opportunities of a municipal provider that is answerable to We the People, not Wall Street, that will not leverage the kind of political influence Sempra and SDGE does now, and will not work at cross purposes with energy efficiency initiatives that threatens their bottom line.

Please delay a decision on this matter today.

By Tommy Hough

In a surprise move, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors has opted to reject the long-running Lilac Hills Ranch proposal. Called "unsafe" by Cal Fire San Diego Unit Chief Tony Mecham at today's hearing, and recommended for denial by county staff  in a highly unusual move, Lilac Hills was one of our region's most persistent and durable "zombie projects."

Initially denied by county planners in 2009, and at the ballot box with the defeat of Measure B in 2016, Lilac Hills was a loser with the courts, voters, and fire safety professionals. Hopefully the cycle of approving reckless sprawl developments in fire-prone areas is, at last, reaching an end.

My remarks today before the Board of Supervisors follow:

My name is Tommy Hough, I live in Mira Mesa. I'm the V.P. for policy and former president of San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action, and I support the staff recommendation to reject the Lilac Hills development.

In 2016 our organization was active in the effort to defeat what was then Measure B, which was the Lilac Hills ballot measure. As you may recall, it was soundly defeated, as residents throughout the county made it clear, as they did again with Newland Sierra on the primary ballot this March, that sprawl development must not be the future of this county, and is not the highest or best use of the rural areas and open space in our county.

We are not Riverside County, and this county should make it a point of pride to resist the temptation to throw open our wildlands, watersheds, and wildlife corridors to sprawl housing developers as has occurred there. If you take a trip north on the 215 to Perris and head east to Hemet, the signs along the road aren't placed by counties or municipalities, but by sprawl housing developers. You know their names. It's clear who holds sway there. It is not a future we should embrace here.

When I ran for San Diego City Council in 2018, I often spoke about our housing crisis, and cited areas within the district I was running in (District 6) where denser housing is a functional option that would require some tweaks to zoning laws, but would enable residents to live within our already-established urbanized footprint, near transit, and the abundant employment centers in our district in Sorrento Valley, Mira Mesa, and Kearny Mesa.

Furthermore, to claim that any of these homes or housing are truly affordable for average San Diegans, is a gross distortion. Unless we're talking about developer-subsidized, or government-subsidized housing, it will NOT be affordable for the majority of working San Diegans. And housing should not be predicated, anywhere, on the false premise that "affordable" housing at the level this area clearly needs can be achieved by setting aside a required percentage of homes that developers can simply buy their way out of. This is to say nothing of the wildfire danger, and significant greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) for new miles traveled to and from manufactured cities in our backcountry like that proposed with Lilac Hills.

It is no longer 1980, and the cycle of approving these reckless developments in fire-prone areas must end. Stop putting citizens in harm's way. There is nothing safe or responsible about this project. Please approve the motion and support the recommendations of staff and county fire in opposition to the Lilac Hills zombie project that was so soundly defeated when it was on the ballot four years ago.

Thank you.